brush strokes 

God asks the angels 
if they've tried painting sunsets.
he says that everyone feels like this
sometimes that everyone needs
to practice a little self-care.
he hands out packets of dollar-store paint brushes
& explain how anytime before dusk 
an angel can press their brush to the sky
& make nice gentle sideways strokes.
God suggests the colors orange
pink & yellow. he suggests bringing along
a buddy to paint alongside of. he suggests
not trying to be too creative,
that the point of the sunset isn't to be creative
but to inspire calmness among the angels 
& the people down below. 
the angels recently have been feeling useless. 
they watch horrible things happen among people.
they curl up in the dirt & let weather fall
all over them. they ask the moss to grow
& shroud them from sun. they ask each other
to remove their own wings one feather
at a time. they want to be mortal.
they want to know this will end. 
some come to paint the sunset,
weeping as they draw a brush across
the skyline. some use unauthorized colors,
they say that there is no way to paint 
the end of a day without adding blue
or purple. the blues & purples are 
cathartic because they are heavy
& they bleed into all the other colors.
one angel asks another 
would you miss me if i fell from here?
the other hold onto the him tight & says 
of course we would all miss you,
never say that.
don't tell people that you 
want to fall from the top of 
a building. 
tell everyone that sunsets make
you feel so much better.
the angels want to know 
if the sunsets actually help 
human so one comes & asks me. he stands
in the door way of my bed room 
& startles me. he gestures
to come look out the window.
above the tops of the houses
i admire a great watercolor sunset.
the angel asks me if it makes me
feel any better. i can't 
tell him the truth. his wings 
are matted & he has dark circles
under his eyes. i lie. i say
of course, yes. all the humans 
wait for the sunset. each day they're
somehow more beautiful.
the angel weeps & thanks me.
i weep & thank thank the angel.
he tells me i should also
get some paints like he has.
i tell him i will
even though i know i won't. 
on the news another mass shooting
happens in a library this time.
on the news there's a fire eating 
every single tree. the fire has 
sunset colors. i turn the television off
but the news bubbles up on my phone
i go to look at the sunset
& try to find brush strokes.

if you find yourself to be an unreliable narrator

i like to sleep in;
i like to get up early.
i'm 800 years old today 
& this is my birthday yes 
because every single tuesday 
is my birthday & i'm in charge 
of tuesdays now they're mine.
i take this tuesday & roll 
it out flat like a pie crust
& fill it with peeled apples/sugar.
to day is a pie. today is tart 
without a cup of sugar. i eat 
just sugar from bowls sometimes 
& i like to feel the grains 
in my teeth--they remind me 
that teeth are bones & 
bones can thin & disappear.
once all the bones in my body 
disappeared so i had to replace them 
with plastic forks & spoons & knives.
my clavicles are spoons & so are
my knuckles. there is a perpetual need
to scoop up everything. i steal 
utensils from restaurants. i steal glasses
& plates & especially salt shakers 
but not before throwing a handful of salt
over my shoulder for better luck. 
it doesn't rain where i'm from.
my neighbors ate only vegetables
they grew in pots outside their front door--
so many tomatoes. 
i had no neighbors actually-- the house
perched in the middle of true no where.
i love no where not to be confused with
nobody. nobody is everyone really 
but i think some people are terribly important.
i passed a man on the street with 
a sequin fedora. he must have been 
one of those people. if i cut all 
the fingers off my gloves maybe 
my fingers will all follow. 
i drink coffee black. i actually drink
coffee with two splenda. splenda because
i like the way yellow tastes better than 
pink or blue or green. sometimes sugar 
looks blue to me. maybe i mean green.
sugar is actually just snow that 
got too caught up in nostalgia. 
i might be a lump of sugar.
i love my dog more than myself.
i love the cross walk sign more than myself.
i love measuring cups & small spoons more than myself.
if i could be anywhere right now
i would probably be asleep. i want to be be dead 
most of the time but not actually dead--
the death i want involves be still 
being able to think in the wonderful 
dark quiet of a coffin. i can't commit
to something like death so don't worry 
about me. i can't even commit to 
eating a whole watermelon. 
i probably could. i love watermelon,
all fruit really, more than myself.

ten years from now

newsprint sprouts from the field
like cabbage-- a speckling 
of black & white across
the swathe of earth that used 
to burst with soybeans.
we don't use words
like "terrible" "horrible" & "atrocity"
anymore because they've become
common words for mundane things.
i spilled the salt - how terrible
she has a cold - horrible
they got a paper cut - an atrocity
the newspapers are from 
ten years from now but only 
one page at a time--
fragments of articles,
pieces of want ads & covers 
out of context. the town's newspaper
stopped printing years ago--
none of these stories have a writer
so the townspeople assume 
it's God. i like to think that 
it might be a man who lives
underneath the earth,
working roots like the peddles 
of an old sewing machine. he would
stand on his head under there.
how he knows the future though,
i'm not sure about. the truth is
that he might not even really know 
that future-- he might just 
be writing whatever comes into 
his head. parents advise children
not to pick the leaves of newsprint
& grandparents advise their 
grown children not to either 
& yet somehow everyone ends up
in the field together, 
on their knees picking through 
the print & reading page 
after page out of order 
& context. none of it makes sense
to anyone but each pretends
like they understand. they look for
obituaries out of fear of
finding their own or a love ones. 
i find one for a neighbor 
three blocks over & i throw it out
because i didn't want 
to know that. ten years is a long time.
the holy people say to ignore
the newsprint field-- to go on
with your lives & don't think
of ten the wildness of ten years 
from now but just like everyone else
i see them in the field
sifting through the pages. in the winds 
the pages rustle 
& sometimes blow away.
tumble down side streets where they mix
with old newspapers where they form
stories that switch from past 
to future & back again. when i die 
i hope they wrap each of my bones
in newspaper just like 
how the thrift store wraps up 
bowls when you buy them-- one pages 
around each object-- 
a kind of swaddling. out in the field 
at night all the words are blurry
in the dark. i pick pages
& smash them into balls.
the headlines are legible 
by the light the half-blink moon
& they talk of things that are 
mostly horrible or terrible 
or atrocities. no one talks about 
the newspapers words 
because it's ten years away &
the they might not 
even be right. i consider taking
my lighter & burning the field.
it's selfish, i know, but 
someone has to, so i do. 
i wait till the tired cob of night
& dip my flame in between 
a knot of pages. it's a horrible 
terrible atrocity to 
see the whole thing burn
knowing it was you who caused it.
in the people everyone
will probably pick through the ash
hoping to find something--
a word or two.

crescent 

the moon decided to stay 
in a crescent shape--
a perfect tilted smile--
a blink above Main Street.
at first most people didn't
notice that the moon had given up
on going through phases.
i noticed because i go down to the curb
to talk to the moon every night.
i tell the moon stories i would never tell
anyone else. i tell the moon that
i'm sad but i have not where 
to take this kind of sadness. 
i tell her that i think "sad"
is a misunderstood word-- maybe only understood
by small children who feel crushed with 
emotion & don't know exactly where it's
coming from-- 
the moon makes ribbon of 
her shiny skin & hands 
strands down to me to wrap up each sadness 
& hide them down underneath 
the rail road platforms in little packages
for pigeons to find. each time 
i place them i wait for the engine
to pass & then sneak under, kneeling 
in the trash & gravel to nestle
each of my glowing packages just
out of sight to the people
on the platform. i don't want humans
finding them.
sometimes i wonder if the pigeons
that open my boxes feel the sadness
wrapped in there--i hope they don't 
but i also hope they do. i come down
to talk to the moon, still in a crescent
but there's all kinds of other people now
gathered along the side of road
staring up at the moon, 
some go asking her why she's stuck
as if they know her, as if they've ever
talked to her before & i want to tell them
to leave the moon alone & let her 
do whatever she needs to do.
i decide to become a crescent too
so that i might understand.
i pull the covers over my head half-way.
tuck my knees into my chest & lie 
on the living room floor. pull all the blinds 
half-open. i blink as many times as 
i can in a minute-- a rapid flickering
of the earth. i come back outside 
where other people have taken
to sleeping on the sidewalk, hoping
to catch the moon's change. i crawl up
into the moon's lap & then lay 
crescent-like next to her. she speaks
in a language of ten-years-ago. 
that would make me twelve. she holds me 
& says that she is far too large
in the sky & that she doesn't want to be 
that full of sadness again. 
i show her how i blink & she laughs 
& blinks too & down below on
earth the few people awake 
see the moon blinking
like a flashlight being
turned on & off. 

nectar 

we ask the automaton
for oranges-- touch each 
mechanical fruit before
it clinks back into tin blossom,
imagine squeezing 
loud metallic juice--
juice turning back into a bloom.

if i called you "device" 
would you understand 
what i mean?

they used to make machines like this
to perform acts of wonder.
a wind-up key in my mouth. 
the orange tree with the key twisting
in its roots & a crowd
hoping it will ripen for them.

i built the orange tree
just to ask it whether or not 
it considers itself alive. i invite 
other people to come & watch,
all sitting in the quiet living room,
orange tree at the center.
no one talks because they want to hear
the tree's ticking.

i pour tap water 
on the carpet. 
the tree doesn't seem thirsty
so i make a milkshake &
tilt the straw towards the orange tree.

winding it up again
my guests all lean in,
they know the routine--
which bud will bloom first 
which orange will be fullest 
with illusion nectar. 

i ask the tree again 
if it's alive & it seems 
to laugh with its clicking
as if to say 
who's to say?
or 
why are you asking me?

after the guests leave
i'm left alone with the machine
staring at me. i want to be
in a state of perpetual wonder.
i put the key in my mouth
& wind up. yes please
let me be the orange tree
i want to be metal & marvelous--
i want to grow the same
fruit over & over.

the key does nothing though 
& so instead i wind the tree
up again this time just 
for myself & i ask
as a whisper
are you alive then?

only this time 
i'm not asking 
the tree

table setting 

my brother & i set a table
under the blue tarp sky that's keeping
the hail from smacking down 
on the fine china. forks
go to the left? a ribbon of gold.
we trace on the gold on the utensils 
because it makes us feel fancy.
he points to my arm & asks 
what happened & i explain that 
underneath the skin we have 
layers of gold-- my wrists
are a crosshatching of gold. 
spoons standing
up in the center of the plate
at attention like soldiers
ready for pudding. we spend
forever balancing them
& it's especially hard because
the hail is turning into rock
just upstairs. a spilling
of bucket after bucket 
of rocks. i tell my brother
to get under the table 
if he's scared & i'll keep
working. i take the knives &
jam them into the table
all of the forehead first 
right above the plates
so as to make sundials 
if the sun ever eats all 
the blue tarps away. we sit
at both heads of the table
& laugh because it looks silly.
i love my brother & we eat 
every dinner together like this,
raising our utensils & biting
invisible forkfuls of food.
he says, tonight i'm having
bratwurst & sauerkraut
i nod & say i'm having a plate
full of lettuce 
& he passes me the dressing 
because he knows i should consume 
more fantastically & for
a moment or two i do think about
angel hair pasta which i think
is disgusting & stringy--
i do this to focus on the lettuce.
a stone breaks through the tarp
& shatters one of the nice plates.
we don't panic. we have known this 
would happen. it's just a blue tarp.
we pick up the pieces
together & i tell him
we can't go walking in here 
with bare feet. in the trash
the dish hums to itself as if
to sing its own farewell. 
we carry on with dinner 
& then go to sleep 
beneath the table with eight legs
the flex all night--
this wonderful beast 
& we tell the table hush
& stand tall 
& sleep with us.

a need for ghosts

i make each cupboard
into a spirit cabinet:
a matrix of pulleys & strings,
nested with musical instruments 
ready to play themselves:
a mandolin, a guitar, a violin--
what can't be done when a string
is pulled taut? the ropes
are pulled tight around my wrists 
& i tell you to load me into 
the spirit cabinet just like 
traveling performers did in 
black & white photograph times
when people would pay with coins
to try & see a spirit. tied up
under the sink i count backwards
to thirteen & close my eyes
so as to not make eye contact.
the spirits come with their hands 
full of static & knuckles--
so many knuckles all brushing
up against my skin. i tell them 
nothing, you can't give them 
anything to hold onto or they'll take 
you with them to the other side
where the ghosts spend all
day looking for cabinets to 
talk to. i imagine a field of 
purple flowers & these ghosts all
just pacing, 
looking down at their feet
& thinking about instruments. 
i stocked each cupboard with
it's on instrument, a trumpet 
below the sink, a drum by the fridge
& in the one i'm crouched in,
a handful of kazoos. the spirits
try & play the kazoo but give up,
disliking the sound-- too silly. 
they hoped for a cabinet with 
something heavier to knock on--
a guitar maybe to strangle with 
sadnesses. insert the sound
of a harp. i want to talk 
to the spirits but that's never
been the point of the spirit cabinet.
the point is to crawl out again 
& show whoever is with you 
that your hair is messed up 
& the instrument sounds they heard
from outside could not have been
your doing, what with your hands
bound up & all.  
you open the door & i wriggle out.
noting my ruffled hair & clothes 
you, of course, believe in ghosts 
just like i believe in ghosts.
maybe you know that it's just
a machine-- that the ropes
work the instruments & the ropes
tussle my hair. after all, you
saw me installing the systems
in each cupboard where we once
kept dry foods-- 
we gutted the kitchen for this.
then again we both know 
that we need ghosts in this house,
we need a spirit with knuckles
willing to touch our faces.
we need instruments played by strings 
& wires. i ask you if 
you want to get inside next
& you say "no, why don't
you go again." so i do,
i knock twice, as if to ask
the spirits to enter &
i crawl inside a different 
cupboard while you watch
from a chair at the kitchen table.

the sphinx 

i always wanted to write
a riddle-- what walks on
eight legs & has never talked
to the sun. are you stumped?
so am i. i make riddles
without answers, knitting
them out of stray threads
pulled from the sleeves 
of sweaters. it's hot our
now & everyone should
have packed their sweaters 
in a box deep in their closet 
where they can cross their 
arms & remember winter 
for the rest of us. the sphinx
sometimes has the head
of a woman & sometimes has 
the head of a man. i consider
how i might be a sphinx--
part boy part girl part 
haunches. a stone stalking
the parameter of being. 
i'm pouring sand from a cereal box
& eating it with a spoon.
what refuses to sleep 
for twenty-two years & 
is still tired? 
i should be guarding something.
i scour through all my things
but i think discarded
anything of value. there was
that one pendant with a gold rim
& that one ring i would pretend 
had a ruby in the middle
but the ruby was a hunk 
of glass & the ring turned 
everyone i loved green.
i'm a new kind of sphinx 
& i'm asking 
what has fourteen eyes 
but cries with only one of them?
what has a vacuum but 
tongues the dirt off the floor 
themselves?
i put in my head phones &
listen to the erosion
try to drown out the complaints
of the sweaters who are
saying that they want a handful
of ice cubes to make 
it through the night. if you're
too merciful no one will ever 
toughen up & turn to stone
& splice themselves with 
a stronger animal. actually
my lion legs are the parts of
me that always want to run first--
an instinct to escape. 
i take off the man's head.
i put on the women's head.
i take off the women's head.
i put on the man's head. 
who lies about their favorite color
to gain favors with the gods?
the sun never talks back
so what would the point be anyway.
i pull the blinds shut
& pretend it's winter
by opening all the doors of the fridge.
do you remember learning something
in elementary school about
how the arctic is a desert too.
right where i belong & the sweaters
will be happy too. i used to have
this tile from Venice that seemed
like it might be worth guarding
but i don't know where it is--
maybe it shattered while
i was writing riddles. it sit
in the new desert & think about 
the second 's' & how i would rather
be posed on a dessert--
a cake topper even
up to my paws in icing. i could
lick them clean when it was all
said & done. 
what animal feels lonely 
& takes off its head? 
who wishes for the bitterness 
of november to spill
into each room of their body?
i'm guarding a fragment 
of colorful glass.
let me give you a riddle. 

a recipe for the whole kitchen 

& guide a blade across
the tops of measuring cups
to level them off. the walls
of this house are made of cook books
that need to be performed. i go 
page by page & i pretend
i have helpers. i direct them 
to cup walnuts & to dice
the dried pineapples but 
nothing moves because there 
are no helpers here, only the 
flies that sneak through the slats
in the air conditioner to lick
sweet surfaces. a siren outside
tastes like those red white & blue
popsicles shaped like rockets,
i wonder if they still make those.
baking petite fours & cupcakes 
& macarons. the mixing machine
is telling stories about when 
it grew up. how its grandmother
would make lemon drop cookies.
the mixing machine doesn't exist,
it's a wishful thinking. a wooden
spoon will due or whisk. the walls 
stir. i set all the confections out 
in trays as if there's a party.
yes, happy birthday, but not to me
or anyone else i know. Google search:
whose birthday is it today? Response:
John the Fearless, Duke of Burgundy (1404-19)
so i say, why not invite him? 
he'll probably appreciate this 
consider it's his birthday
& he's been dead for a considerable 
amount of time. he'll probably be surprised 
anyone even remembered. i tell the 
mixing machine to tell John the Fearless
that we have been planning a surprise 
for him. the mixing machine asks
who is "we" & i say 
well you & me, of course
which made the machine turn 
back into an armadillo &
crawl off the map. i didn't chase
him, i know he'll be back someday.
cook book after cook book. 
the best recipes are the ones in
different languages & for those
i just trust my fingers-- i pinch spices 
i half fruits & pluck out the seeds.
i knead the dough-- a mound of loaves,
the loaves into fishes or was 
it the fishes into loaves,
either way mine 
turn into salmon & swim
up the staircase & i cook every single
book from cover to cover,
sit in the mound of creations.
i wonder if this is what
god felt like when he made the earth.
no, i'm not comparing myself 
to god, just to how lonely i must
feel to make small beautiful edible things.
i wait for the John the Fearless guy
but he never comes 
so i make a fort out of all 
the treats. i tell them stories
& sometimes when no one is looking
as if anyone is ever looking
i eat one. i eat very carefully 
& slow. i feel badly when i do--
like i'm eating children, like
they're asking for forgiveness 
for every powdered sugar corner 
& icing-ed forehead. i tell them 
i'm sorry i made so many.

cutting my own hair on a sunday afternoon 

i flick the clippers on 
& they shutter-- jittering
the bones of my hand--
this shivering femur 
this quivering species--
as if they were a small mammal 
designed to browse our skulls
& eat the hair off of them.
it's strange to be holding clippers
myself after all the times
someone else has guided them
over my head.
i'm back maybe 
six years ago standing at the oval mirror
on my uncle's side of the house
he's saying "look down" 
& "tilt your head
this way." the buzzing
combines with the sound 
of horse hooves clopping
up our street toward the meeting house.
must have been a sunday.
today is also a sunday but 
i keep forgetting it is.
i mouth to myself in the mirror 
it is sunday.
i have no calendars pinned 
to the back of a door-- i have 
no wrist or watch & no one
else is home to ask if it 
really is sunday.
it is sunday.
there's something original 
about dark brown hair falling 
into a white sink-- like it might
have been an action
god performed on us
& we all forgot. i pause between
swipes of clipping to 
rub the clumps of hair 
between my fingers.
it's thick & seems like
the hair of a woodland animal. 
i picture a raccoon 
curled around my head.
i look in the mirror &
i've only cut three patches--
each distinct 
little territories.
i touch 
kiwi fruit skin 
or maybe the fresh cut lawn 
when the grass was all yellow
& dry in july.
short-- a familiar texture.
i have been shaving the sides
of my head down this short 
for years but it always feels
loud like this 
when its fresh cut.
i have a few beats
where i wonder if i can 
actually shave the rest.
i want to ask someone to help,
not because i can't do it but
maybe because i don't want to 
alone. i don't consider this
hugely symbolic, i'm always a 
lonely person whether there
are people at home or not.
no one else even knows
i'm doing this. the impulse
to cut my hair is unpredictable,
but immediate & demanding.
still, i can't cut more while
i'm thinking about 
what it feels like
to have someone put their
hands on your skull
& guide a blade across.